wireWAX is hiring - Startup Interview

Hi Dan, tell us about wireWAX. In a short pitch, wireWAX is..

Dan: wireWAX is an interactive video technology. It allows anyone to add
clickable hotspots to moving people and objects in video - putting leading edge
image technology into peoples hands.

The technology behind wireWAX seems amazing, could you talk a bit about it?

Dan: wireWAX is a completely home-grown technology built with some of the most
uncharted technologies in computer vision and machine learning. When a user uploads a video,
we analyse for movement, zoom, interiors, exteriors and numerous other aspects of intelligence
about the piece. We then look for faces, all automatically. Once detected, we track those
faces as they move in shots and between scenes - adding a clickable/touchable hotspot,
again - all automatically. We're just rolling out recognition on this element, so we
can recognise your friends, famous faces, politicians etc. If we've not tagged something
for you, then you just draw a box around the object and click plus button - we will
motion-track it all within seconds.

We're working to make video intelligent, to make the people and objects inside the video
a referenced part of web. Bringing the experiences, the wants, the interests, the information
to the viewer when it's most relevant, right there and then.

How is it working at wireWAX? Who is in the team?

Dan: wireWAX is working in an exciting field; moving forward a medium - we absolutely
see it like that. But, we're not doing this blindly - in our opinion interactive video has all
too often been attempted by techys, for techys - the founders of wireWAX came from television
production - it's got viewers and their experience at its heart.

It's amazing to be working alongside so many of the world's best names (from Nike, Rip Curl,
Tommy Hilfiger, Levis through to media brands like EMI, Universal, ITV, Channel 4, Turner) to
be doing what we're doing - we see our users as partners in making this all happen.

The team is led by CEO Steve Callanan, a veteran of prime time television production
and rather helpfully, engineering. He's joined by his number 2, Dan Garraway,
who also joined Steve from a tv production and similarly, web development background.
Since then and particularly in the last 6 months, the team has been building with
leading PHD engineers in the field of computer vision, design and development gurus
and most recently, a US West and East Coast team, who work closely with our brand partner
users to deliver with the platform.

It's an incredibly exciting time and we're resolute in our objective.

How's a typical week for a developer at wireWAX?

Dan: Right now, we're scaling and it's pretty much all hands on deck as we build out the
core tool, particularly in our vision department, whilst perfecting the existing platform.
Everyone pretty much knows their lot and has tasks they'll set themselves.

We work very collaboratively, so meetings aren't 'set' that often - they're all day, everyday with punctuated
group chats to assign priority. We eat, drink and generally have fun together. You spend most
of your life with the people you work with and we orientate around a culture of fun and also
responsibility; everyone knows when and where they need to be, when to get the head down,
when to lookup a video of a cat falling over.

What's the next challenge for wireWAX?

Dan: Building a global brand. We've been incredibly fortunate to have such strong user support
and big brand endorsement, it's led to hive of activity and excitement in real uses of the tool.
Scaling into a global product and keeping focus on ultimate objective, to make the video intelligent,
is a tremendous challenge. But one we're tackling face on.